apfel

# apfel

### The free AI already on your Mac.

[![Version 1.17.0](https://img.shields.io/badge/version-1.17.0-blue)](https://github.com/Arthur-Ficial/apfel)
[![Swift 6.3+](https://img.shields.io/badge/Swift-6.3%2B-F05138?logo=swift&logoColor=white)](https://swift.org)
[![macOS 26 Tahoe+](https://img.shields.io/badge/macOS-26%20Tahoe%2B-000000?logo=apple&logoColor=white)](https://developer.apple.com/macos/)
[![No Xcode Required](https://img.shields.io/badge/Xcode-not%20required-orange)](https://developer.apple.com/xcode/resources/)
[![License: MIT](https://img.shields.io/badge/License-MIT-blue.svg)](LICENSE)
[![100% On-Device](https://img.shields.io/badge/inference-100%25%20on--device-green)](https://developer.apple.com/documentation/foundationmodels)
[![Website](https://img.shields.io/badge/web-apfel.franzai.com-16A34A)](https://apfel.franzai.com)
[![#agentswelcome](https://img.shields.io/badge/%23agentswelcome-PRs%20welcome-0066cc?style=for-the-badge&labelColor=0d1117&logo=probot&logoColor=white)](#contributing)

Apple Silicon Macs ship a built-in LLM via [Apple FoundationModels](https://developer.apple.com/documentation/foundationmodels). `apfel` exposes it as a UNIX tool and a local OpenAI-compatible server. 100% on-device. No API keys, no cloud.

| Mode | Command | What you get |
|------|---------|--------------|
| UNIX tool | `apfel "prompt"` / `echo "text" \| apfel` | Pipe-friendly answers, file attachments, JSON output, exit codes |
| OpenAI-compatible server | `apfel --serve` | Drop-in local `http://localhost:11434/v1` backend for OpenAI SDKs |

`apfel --chat` - interactive REPL.

Tool calling works in all contexts.

![apfel CLI](screenshots/cli.png)

## Requirements & Install

macOS 26 Tahoe+, Apple Silicon (M1+), [Apple Intelligence enabled](https://support.apple.com/en-us/121115). On macOS 27, Macs with an M3 or newer chip and 12 GB+ run Apple's larger on-device model with an 8192-token window; M1/M2 Macs and every Mac on macOS 26 have 4096. `apfel --model-info` shows yours.

```bash
brew install apfel
```

Update:

```bash
brew upgrade apfel
```

Build from source (Command Line Tools with the macOS 27 SDK / Swift 6.3, no Xcode; the binary runs on macOS 26 and 27):

```bash
git clone https://github.com/Arthur-Ficial/apfel.git && cd apfel && make install
```

Nix, same-day tap, Mint, mise, troubleshooting: [docs/install.md](docs/install.md).

## Quick Start

### UNIX tool

Quote prompts with `!` in single quotes (zsh/bash history expansion): `apfel 'Hello, Mac!'`.

```bash
# Single prompt
apfel "What is the capital of Austria?"

# Permissive mode - reduces guardrail false positives for creative/long prompts
apfel --permissive "Write a dramatic opening for a thriller novel"

# Stream output
apfel --stream "Write a haiku about code"

# Pipe input
echo "Summarize: $(cat README.md)" | apfel

# Attach file content to prompt
apfel -f README.md "Summarize this project"

# Attach multiple files
apfel -f old.swift -f new.swift "What changed betw